Cemeteries

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its
graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built
after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded before 1855, but we understand it was closed in 1879.

This place of worship is marked on the Bristol Town Plans of 1884-1885 as a Mission Hall, with seating for 350. There is no indication of its denomination, but Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1902 records Princes Street, Bedminster (Spring Street to New Queen Street) having a Bible Christian Chapel, so I am assuming they are one and the same, and it remained in the Directory because it was retained by the Bible Christians after they built a new Chapel in nearby Redcliff[e] Crescent.

The following notice in The London Gazette of 5th February 1861 (p.455) recorded its initial registration for marriages:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building, named Bible Christian Chapel, situated at Princes-street, in the parish of Bedminster, in the counties of Bristol and Somerset, in the district of Bedminster, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 29th day of January, 1861, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of 6th and 7th Wm. IV., cap. 85. Dated 1st February 1861.

A similar notice in the Gazette of 10th October 1879 (p.5838) recorded the substitution of "Redcliff-crescent Chapel" for the building known as "Bible Christians Chapel, Princes-street, Bedminster, now disused".

Whilst the age of the Princes Street building cannot be determined for certain, it is shown on the Ashmead Maps of Bristol of 1855, and 1874, marked as "Chapel". Prior to that, a return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/328/1/1/10) indicates a place of worship existed in Bedminster for a Bible Christian congregation, founded "before 1800". It was not a separate building, and no name, or address were given for it, but it was used exclusively as a place of worship. It had seating for 80, all of which were free, and an average congregation of 30 at morning service, and 50 in the evening. The return was completed by Henry Howell, its Steward, who gave his address as 49 Castle Street, Bristol.

Denomination

Now or formerly Bible Christian.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here,
or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this
will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church was located at OS grid reference ST5924371836. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays)
Zoom out to 1:100000 to see County boundaries, and 1:500000 to show Parish Boundaries.

Reference

Places recorded by the Registrar
General under the provisions of the Places of Worship
Registration Act 1855 (2010) is available as a
"Freedom of Information" document from the website
What Do They Know.

You can specify either a Place, or OS Grid Reference to
search for. When you specify a Place, only entries for that place
will be returned, with Places of Worship listed in alphabetical
order. If you specify a Grid Reference, Places of Worship in the
immediate vicinity will be listed, in order of distance from the Grid
Reference supplied. The default is to list 10, but you can specify
How Many you want to see, up to a maximum of 100.

You can further refine your search by supplying other search terms.

You can specify entries with ('Yes') or without ('No') photographs.

You can specify a church or chapel's Dedication, to restrict entries to
those containing the term you supply as a dedication. So for instance, 'John'
would return 'St John', 'St Mary and St John', 'St John the Divine' &c.

You can specify a Street address, and likewise 'George' will return
George Place, St George's Street, George and Dragon, &c.

You can restrict the search to classes of Denomination. The exact denomination
is always shown in the results, although the search is for broad types. So you
can search for 'Methodist', but not 'Wesleyan Methodist' or 'Primitive Methodist'.
'Multi-denominational' includes Ecumenical Partnerships, and
'Other' means anything not covered by other broad classes.

Please note the above provides a search of selected fields in
the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship
Database on this site (churchdb.gukutils.org.uk) only.
For other counties, or for a full search of the Database, you might
like to try the site's
Google Custom Search, which includes full webpage content.

Further Information

This site provides historical information about churches, other places
of worship and cemeteries. It has no affiliation with the churches or
congregations themselves, nor is it intended to provide a means to find
places of worship in the present day.